This invention relates to a device for loading refuse into the body of a refuse collecting vehicle and for compacting refuse in said vehicle body, the device including a link and a shovel pivotally connected to one another and individually driven by means, preferably of the hydraulic type, which cause the link and shovel to perform such movements as to permit refuse that is being fed to a refuse receiving trough, to be picked up therefrom, transferred to a box-like body of the vehicle and compacted therein.
Refuse collecting vehicles usually include a loading body or chamber that is carried by the structure of the vehicle and is provided at the rear with a loading opening or inlet through which waste matter is fed to a receiving trough to be then pushed by suitable means to the interior of said chamber. Provided inside this chamber is a movable gate that is designed to form a front end wall of the chamber opposite to said inlet opening thereof, the movable gate being caused to move rearwardly during unloading in order to allow refuse to be discharged from the rear side of the chamber after the unit comprising the receiving trough and the loading and compacting device have been raised.
There are many types of refuse loading and compacting devices, i.e. means that are designed to transfer refuse from a receiving space to a collecting chamber, but all of them have drawbacks in that they are slow in operation, are only capable of compacting small quantities of refuse in a single step and are unable to accomodate refuse of some bulky nature.
Thus for example, a wide-spread device comprises a pair of swingable shovels, one of which is intended for bringing refuse up from the bottom of a receiving trough, while the other, which is to accurately operate in step with the first named shovel, is designed to push the raised refuse to the interior of a collecting box. Apart from the extreme complexity of construction of such a device, the shovel arrangement thereof does not allow a comparatively bulky refuse, such as a waste electro-domestic appliance, entering the collecting chamber.
Another prior known device makes use of a receiving trough provided with a bottom semi-circular in shape, and a shovel comprising an arm having a length equal to a radius of said bottom, the arm being so pivoted at a central part thereof as to be swingable through 180.degree. to cause refuse collected during the successive strokes to be pushed to the interior of the collecting chamber alternatively on one side and the other of the swinging axis of the shovel. In this case too, a complicate kinematics is required for displacing the shovel and the problem again arises that bulky refuse is not able to be loaded due to the rear opening of the collecting chamber being for less than half its effective capacity available for use. Also the quantity of refuse that may be fed to the collecting chamber during each single loading step is small.